U.S. Senators Steve Daines and Tim Sheehy, along with Congressmen Ryan Zinke (MT-01) and Troy Downing (MT-02), sent a letter to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation requesting funding to repair the St. Mary Diversion Dam and Canal in northwestern Montana.
The delegation is urging the Bureau of Reclamation to consider the St. Mary Diversion Dam and Canal of the Milk River Project as an authorized recipient of funding under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, specifically under the “Water Conveyance and Surface Water Storage Enhancement” provision.
When the canal was originally constructed in 1915, it had the capacity to divert up to 850 cubic feet per second (cfs). Due to its age, that capacity has declined to only 600 cfs, resulting in a loss of more than 100 million acre-feet of water flowing across the border into Canada every day.
Of the five Drops within the system, two have been successfully replaced, but failure of the remaining three is considered imminent. Drop 5 failed in 2020 and the Siphon failed in 2025, each time leading to the complete loss of the irrigation season for local and regional producers and resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in losses. The delegation warned that failure of any of the three remaining Drops could once again cause catastrophic damage and severe economic harm.
“Funding under ‘Water Conveyance and Surface Water Storage Enhancement’ was designated specifically for construction and associated activities that restore or increase the capacity or use of existing conveyance facilities constructed by the Bureau of Reclamation,” the delegation wrote. “The current fragility of the system speaks to the dire need to restore this key infrastructure to protect our precious water resources.”
By DNU staff